Everyone cannot be the problem! With Meghan Markle, there is a clear pattern. Let me do the list, because some people keep pretending there's no pattern. Her father: hasn't spoken to her since her wedding week, never met her kids. Her half-sister sued and lost, her half-brother writes open letters. Her first husband: gone within two years and never said a word, which tells you something too. Her childhood best friend, maid of honour at the first wedding, went public in 2017 to say she didn't recognise her anymore. Jessica Mulroney, the Canadian best friend who did the wedding, cut off in 2020. Two personal assistants out of Kensington Palace within a year, and a formal bullying complaint from her own comms chief. The Palace ran a review and never published it. The Queen's household got 'recollections may vary.' Philip got Oprah while he was in hospital. The brother in law got 'arch nemesis.' Spotify's man called them grifters. UTA's boss said not a great talent. Ari Emanuel said he was done after one phone call. Netflix walked from the partnership. And this week Roland Mouret, who dressed her for a decade, says she dropped him over one admin error and then wore a cheap copy of his dress to make the point. Different people. Different countries. Different decades. Family, friends, staff, bosses, in-laws, designers, agents. One name in every story. And in every story, by her account, she was the one wronged. Not once has she said 'that was me.' Not once. If you want to see the real face, it's in her own Netflix series. The moment she's told that Jason Knauf, her own comms man, has handed the Court of Appeal emails showing she did brief the authors of that book, after she'd told the High Court she hadn't. Watch her reaction. Not shame. Rage. Betrayal. How dare he. She then apologised to the court for 'forgetting.' The series shows the anger. It leaves out the apology. That's the whole playbook in one scene. Get caught, get furious, make it about the person who caught you, keep the cameras rolling. When one person falls out with you, it's them. When everyone does, it isn't.

Something needs saying plainly because the media keeps forgetting it. Harry and Meghan are private citizens. Not 'non-working royals.' Not 'royals in exile.' Not 'the Sussexes stepping out.' Private citizens. They chose it in 2020. They told Oprah why. They moved back in August with no plans to resume duties. And last month the Lord Chamberlain wrote it down so there could be no confusion: no royal role, no duties, no claim. So what was Nottingham? What's a tuxedo with medals on at Greenwich? What's standing next to the Irish Guards band, Catherine's regiment, for the pool photographer? What's turning up alone at the rugby, Catherine's patronage, and having a 'source' tell Hello! the kids would love to come once the security is 'sorted'? What's a 'sorry' floated through the Express without actually saying sorry? It's an application. For the thing they gave up. Royal adjacency without royal duty. The crowds, the flowers, the cameras, the police escort, the family's name over the door, and none of the Tuesdays in Peterhead or the 532 engagements a year the King did in cancer treatment. And we cannot give it to them. Not the public, not the papers, not the Home Office, not the family. Because the moment you reward leaving, then performing the job you left, for free, in the same city, with a fan club bringing the flowers, you've told every future royal that the door swings both ways and the perks are portable. It isn't and they aren't. That's the whole deal. You're in or you're out. One more thing. Meghan is 45. She's the oldest of the four. Older than William, older than Catherine, older than Harry. She is not the ingénue in this story, whatever the tears at a bouquet are meant to suggest. She's a grown woman who's made every choice on this list and now wants the one thing those choices cost her. Private citizens. Enjoy Nottingham. Pay for your own security like the rest of us, and the next time a working royal is on a bus in Sussex with a 94 year old, notice the difference. That's the job. They didn't want it. They don't get the bits that come with it.